


Deals

by nowstfucallicles



Category: Riddick (2013), The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, One Shot, Set between Chronicles and Riddick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 02:32:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5810161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nowstfucallicles/pseuds/nowstfucallicles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’ve seen loyalty.” His voice dropped to a growl. “It’s another way to kill. Same here, same in every hellhole of the universe. There’s one thing that’s real, the deals you make.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deals

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta-ed.

“Not you.”

With a slow nod to the Lord Marshal, Vaako stayed back as the high chamber emptied. The men left as ordered and the guards dragged away the last of the bodies. Would-be assassins, fifteen of them. Riddick had dropped them all before the sentries had arrived. He finished them fast, always, as a matter of principle. Faster than was wise. Making sure they paid the price, yet leaving none for interrogation, none to be made into an example. To the Necro this reeked of mercy, Vaako knew it. Or worse, of a weak hand. He looked across the smoke-filled room and then took another step inside.

“The second attempt in one cycle,” he said. “Here. They are getting bolder.”

“You’d think they’d learned by now,” Riddick said. “There are ways to kill a king… and there are ways to die.”

He was leaning against the viewport in the back, as if watching for something from above. Covered in blood, his blades blackened and dangling from the belt, he looked like a mere convert from an old battle. He seldom wore his armor, even now. Seldom carried anything but the blades, yet these were always close at hand. He would look an easy kill to those who had never seen him fight. He seemed wide open, at all times, but he had been caged long enough once to never give himself disadvantage. Few things were more dangerous than to underestimate him. To send fifteen for him was to send none.

“They are of little use dead,” Vaako said.

Riddick gave a low hum, his form motionless against the glass. “What you got?”

“They were cultists. Fanatics, like the ones before.”

“What else?”

“None from the ranks.” Vaako had gone through one of the lensors before, finding nothing but cannon fodder. Low-ranks and dead meat. No title or clan to their names that would call for a purging. No loose ends.

“Pawns,” Riddick said. “A pack of stray dogs someone went ahead and trained.”

“Someone did. They had information on the chamber. Knowlegde of the protocols.”

“Hard to come by for a crew like this.” The breeder’s voice deepened into a grin. “I wanna know who sent them.”

Still turned towards the viewport, he rolled back his shoulder. There was a cut on his arm, long and still fresh, from the one hit they had landed. Whoever had ordered the attack, they could not have hoped to kill him here, not this time. The chamber was the inner sanctum, home to all the last Lord Marshals. To hit him here was to wound him. It was provocation, a way to weaken him for what was to come. Treason was eating itself through the ranks, yet there were many still who served Riddick without doubt. Men who followed him loyally, as one. Soldiers who spoke his name with reverence. Their fidelity was not fickle, yet it would fade at the sight of weakness. It could turn on him. It was in their race, an instinct that ran in their blood.

One soldier had stayed back to collect the rest of salvageable gear. Riddick waved him away.

“I want names.”

Vaako curtly shook his head. With all gone, he waited until the gates had been closed on the chamber. “The bodies are being scanned, but I doubt we'll find a thing. They have been prepared.”

“Got their brains fried...”

“Like pioneers in battle.”

Behind him the long row of seals had clicked into place and the lights in the chamber went out. He was used to it now, his eyes adjusting fast in the dark. Only the white shine from the viewport remained, falling onto Riddick. Ahead of them, on the other side Vaako saw the desert world with its pair of blazing suns. Another dead system with nothing worth a drop. It was almost too small to orbit. A wasteland reminding them all that the campaign had stopped. It had come to a halt a long time ago, disintegrating into a slow, scattered course whose aim Riddick would not share. It could have been any place, or no place at all. A thing he was looking for, moving them further and further away from the Threshold.

“So you got nothing.” Riddick was stirring slowly, raising his head as if to listen.

“Not yet. Next time, leave one breathing.”

He did not know who had ordered the attack. No names, nothing of use. Yet he knew that a small group had formed not long ago, among Commanders. Men who were not going to wait for the Armada to slip from Riddick’s hands, nor for the chaos of revolt and inner war. They were going to seize it. Their plan had already been put in motion. A slow blade, as Vaako had been told, though none too slow. Their men had come to him once, in the dead of night and more than eager to win him for their masters. Not the first ones to come to him and not the last either, and he had listened to them before sending them away. He sent them all away, all with the same words. _I have plans of my own._

“I’ll try to remember.” Riddick’s form shifted, stretching like a reptile that had just fed.

“There will be others,” Vaako said. “There'll be more. Soon.”

“There are always… others. I’ll see ‘em coming. It’s the ones I don’t see coming I got a problem with.” Riddick began to lean away from the wall and his goggles lit up for a moment, white and blood-streaked.

“Like you.”

He was looking at Vaako now and after a while he slid from the light and moved ahead. His steps silent on the scorched floor.

“If I were you, I’d ghosted me a long time ago. Quick and easy.” He said it lowly, with a grin. “You keep what you kill, ain’t that right?”

Vaako was still, looking ahead as Riddick stopped short of him. This was not one of the breeder’s games, he could see that. This was not a test, a means by which to gage where he stood. This time it was different. Something had sparked Riddick’s mistrust, ultimately, something that was beyond his own doing and power. In the chamber’s dead silence he felt an anticipation that had become rare of late. A stirring towards battle.

“First among commanders, just like under the old guy.” Riddick’s hand took away the goggles, the other one resting on his belt. “You wanted it bad, back then. Lot more than I did.”

“I did.” Vaako weighed the words. “More than anyone.”

“You got close… Just not close enough.”

Vaako held his gaze. He could smell it now, the warm stench of death on the breeder. He could sense the remnants of his strange power that hung in the air and he remembered seeing it for the first time on that burnt planet. He waited for the breeder’s words. Despite what he had sworn to do, he had never ceased to want it. He wanted the throne, just as he wanted the Furyan’s blood, the same way he had wanted it back then. He wanted all that Riddick had cost him and for an instant it came back to him. How close it had been. How small a moment, no more than the raising of an axe.

The breeder moved in closer and his eyes lit up in the dark. “The Necro line of succession is a hell of a slow moving line.”

“Depends on where one stands.”

“Yeah,” Riddick’s grin sharpened. ”I know where you stand… But you’re not in the game yet, not like those fuckers out there. Whatever’s brewing in Necro City right now, it’s not on you. Why’s that?”

“I know my place.”

With a laugh Riddick began pacing around him. “Big boss never saw you coming. The golden boy… All this woulda been yours if you’d been up for the job.”

Vaako watched him from the corner of his eye. He could see it now as he had seen it many times before, and yet more clearly. Letting his hand sink down slowly. Ripping out the small dagger from beneath the armor and slashing it deep into Riddick’s neck. One swift, slight move and he would have everything. He would take to the throne before the breeder’s blood had cooled. Have what had been his to own all along.

“Different times,” he said.

The breeder was unaware. As unknowing as the conspirators who took him for one of their own. None of it would come to pass. No blade would be drawn, unless Riddick were to move first. He had seen it once and he knew it for what it was, the killing of a Lord Marshal before his due time. It was a fall. A fall, unlike anything else. He wanted the throne no less than before, wanted Riddick’s head more than he had ever wanted Zhylaw’s. Yet he would not spill the blood of the Lord Marshal. Nor would he have it spilled, for his own sake or that of another. He had sworn to it. An oath to himself, long ago.

Riddick stood facing him, leaning up to him as he spoke.

“I’ve seen loyalty.” His voice dropped to a growl. “It’s another way to kill. Same here, same in every shithole of the universe. There’s one thing that’s real, the deals you make.”

“There is a deal. I'm holding up my end.“

“ _Fuck this._ ” With a shove Riddick grabbed his armor, fingers clamping down its neck. “Here it is. Every time there’s a blade round the corner or a pointer at my head, every time there’s a fix in my drink, it should be you. Now better start telling me why it’s not.”

“Could ask you the same,” Vaako pressed out and Riddick leaned even closer.

“Unwise, Riddick… keeping around the challenger.”

Riddick kept hovering close by, motionless except for the deep, Furyan breathing. His hand sank into Vaako’s neck, keeping him in place.

He found himself responding, breathing flatly in the dark. Leaning into the grip. The breeder’s hand did not loosen but slid up, his thumb now pressing into his neck.

“Riddick…”

He was jacked forward and something sharp shifted in Riddick’s eyes before they lunged at each other. At once he tasted that quick blood, tasted the stale heat that was still there, running through the breeder. The greed of life he was yet to give up on. He pushed back into him, gripping his head, and Riddick’s mouth opened to him like a whore’s, opened like something that had lain in wait. His weight grinding against the armor's plates, rough and snaking. This was insanity, and it would cost him. Cost them both.

He licked slowly and hard over Riddick’s naked teeth, then harder over his throat, over smeared skin. With both hands he began loosening the plates, first on his chest then on both legs, stretching back into Riddick's grasp. It had dropped, rooting itself to his ass, and Vaako returned it, rubbing deep into the hot, hard flesh. It was life, a vestige of it that still clung to him and that would not rot away. Not in this verse. The breeder’s mouth slipped from his and in the shades he saw the bright slits of his eyes. They shifted to the back where the rest of the chamber lay in the dark and then they waited, his grin slack, bleeding. Until with a slow nod, Vaako followed.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
